For someone who rarely cooks, it is incredible how many cooking magazines I religiously dip into and how many cooking shows I watch. I am astounded, always, by the tips provided in publications not only by the editors but by readers who send them in. With full credit going to Cooks Illustrated – to my mind it reads like a novel, especially the opening essay by test kitchen guru Christopher Kimball – I share these tidbits:

Cupid’s fickle bow is poised for Valentine’s Day. Florists’ windows scream roses, card stores devote entire aisles to sentiments loving and lewd, and chocolate packers are on overtime. While it is not customary for bosses to send candy or roses, there are some free gifts they can deliver any day. The ideas all come from that same old non-love song I’ve heard in offices over a long career.

Sometimes I wake with migraine headaches so many days in a row that I dread going to sleep at night for fear of what the morning will bring. And sometimes when I get a real zinger, my prayer is for someone to take a mallet to my head, knock me out, and wake me when it’s over.

This is part of a longer opinion piece published in Newsday on Wednesday, January 13, 2011.

Until five years ago, when he won top prize in a Mahler conducting competition in Germany, Gustavo Dudamel was unknown on the world stage. Today he is classical music’s rock star. Long curls flying, the 29-year-old conducts not only with his baton but with his eyes, his mouth, his stance, with every body part it seems. Sometimes, it appears that the podium is not large enough to contain him.